SiN Episodes: The Aftermath

Ritual Lead Designer Shawn Ketcherside updated the SiN Episodes site with some news for European folks (it was just unlocked today overseas) and an update for German players:

Here's what's going on: the initial submission to the German ratings board (USK) failed and the game was refused a rating by the organization - this affects both the Steam and the retail version. We've been working on a localized version of the game for Germany, which will go on sale as soon as it is assigned a rating by the USK. We don't have a timeline for this yet, but we're moving as quickly as possible.

I don't get why German players just don't get a different regional version but whatever. Sean goes on to give an update about a little lovin that's on the way:

So, I'm sure many of you are wondering - "Okay, Emergence is out . What are they doing now?" Well, I can answer that for you. We're hard at work on Episode 2, taking a critical eye to elements in Emergence and going through all the community feedback we've received to make adjustments to the design. On a more concrete level, we're focused primarily on integrating all the cool new features Valve has added to the source engine into the Emergence code base. It's a pretty hefty chore, those Valve guys have added quite a bit of awesome stuff since our last code merge, things like HDR and the like, so there's a solid amount of work to be done.

Anyway, after the code merge, things get really interesting - especially for all you Emergence players out there. In addition to Episode 2, we're going to focus on three things: SDK, Arena Mode, and Multiplayer - all three of which will be free to Emergence players. We're as anxious to get these things in your hands as you all are to have them. So, everyone can rest assured that we're not going to be abandoning our fans as we press forward on Episode 2 - We've got a lot of good things planned for you guys.